The present invention relates, in general, to electronics, and more particularly, to methods of forming semiconductor devices and structure.
In the past, the semiconductor industry utilized various methods and structures to form linear voltage regulators that regulated an output voltage. The voltage regulators sampled the output voltage and used an error amplifier to regulate the sampled voltage to the value of a reference voltage. In some types of voltage regulators, a bypass capacitor was connected to the reference voltage at an input to the error amplifier in order to reduce noise on the reference voltage. The bypass capacitor often had a very large value which required a large amount of time for the voltage regulator to initially form the reference voltage, thus, a large amount of time was required for the voltage regulator to start-up. The long start-up time usually was an undesirable feature
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a voltage regulator that has a reduced start-up time.
For simplicity and clarity of the illustration, elements in the figures are not necessarily to scale, and the same reference numbers in different figures denote the same elements. Additionally, descriptions and details of well-known steps and elements are omitted for simplicity of the description. As used herein current carrying electrode means an element of a device that carries current through the device such as a source or a drain of an MOS transistor or an emitter or a collector of a bipolar transistor or a cathode or anode of a diode, and a control electrode means an element of the device that controls current through the device such as a gate of an MOS transistor or a base of a bipolar transistor. Although the devices are explained herein as certain N-channel or P-Channel devices, a person of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that complementary devices are also possible in accordance with the present invention. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the words during, while, and when as used herein are not exact terms that mean an action takes place instantly upon an initiating action but that there may be some small but reasonable delay, such as a propagation delay, between the reaction that is initiated by the initial action.